"Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community."-- Anthony J. D'Angelo

I know it is of little importance to others when I neglect to write in my blog regularly, but it does set be back a bit when I don't apply myself to my electronic journal. As I have been on vacation and also busy with many commissioned paintings, I have indeed let my writing slide.

I look forward then to returning to my writing group this week. We will be looking back at some of our practices and also revisiting a piece of work by one of our members that we did not spend sufficient time on earlier.

One of the things we will do during the meeting is write in our journals for at least ten minutes. This is truly a form of exercise--mental, spiritual, psychological, philosophical exercise. It is in my opinion one of the most important building blocks of the writing practice. Just in case you need to be convinced, click on the image below to go to an article titled, "Ten Surprising Benefits You'll Get from Keeping a Journal."

What do you bring to the table?

It is to be hoped that the journal writing will warm us up for the next activity, "The Exquisite Corpse." With Halloween just around the corner, this sounds perhaps like a gruesome parlor game! It is, however, an exercise first documented about a century ago. It sometimes involves images, but we will focus on using words instead. (To click on more information about this, click on the "corpse" made of images below.)

Looking at the Process

I would also like us to spend some time looking at each other's writing. Perhaps, in order to limit the scope of our discussion, we should start with the elements of structure, symbolism and tone. From there we can certainly branch out to other concerns.​

If you wish to add to this discussion or have any questions about what we will be doing this week, please write, either through the blog or email, to the other members of the group.

Until Wednesday:

"The power of community to create health is far greater than any physician, clinic or hospital."--Mark Hyman